tactics training

Hi,

On the puzzles update blog (en.lichess.org/blog/WDY6cCEAALYi5Xg2/puzzles-update) it states

"there's now guaranteed to be only one good and acceptable solution to each puzzle. Gone are the days of 'good move but you could do better' or being failed for playing a mate-in-3 when there was mate-in-2."

This implies that both the mate in 3 and mate in 2 could be accepted solutions to a puzzle.

Does this mean there are multiple accepted solutions in cases of mating puzzles, but not puzzles that do not result in mate?

This means that if the puzzle ends in mate, all other possible moves besides the one that results in mate will result in a roughly equal or losing position.

OK thanks, so there are multiple solutions to mating puzzles, but one solution for non-mating puzzles.

That's cool. I think the update overall sounds really great, although I haven't tested any puzzles yet.

No, there's only one solution to any of the new puzzles.

If you don't play the correct move in a mating puzzle, you will either draw or lose.

Actually strictly speaking there are still puzzles with more than 1 solutions.

For example: en.lichess.org/training/5155

Here after:

... Rxh3+
Kg1 Rxg3
Rxg7 Kxg7
Qg8+

Both Kxg8 and Rxg8 work and are accepted by the puzzle.

But they both lead to the optimal mate in i-don't-know-how-many moves.

I guess they only mean that this "good move but you can do better" feature is no longer supported.

That's one of the old puzzles, new puzzles start at 61000.

If as stated you don't fail for playing a mate-in-3 when there was mate-in-2 then there are multiple solutions in those puzzles.

@Clarkey

I am under the impression the puzzle system is generally updated, and not just that there are new puzzles with new rules and old puzzles with old rules.

@Raffelsnitch

I think whoever wrote the blog post maybe just didn't express themselves properly. It is kind of contradiction to say that on one hand there is only a single best solution (at least in terms of number of moves for checkmate or similarly maybe winning position) and then right after that to say that you will no longer fail for finding a mate in 3 if a mate in 2 exists. Especially knowing that before you weren't failed in such cases, quite the opposite, you had exactly that message to try to find a better move, but you have not failed.

Unless you're playing anonymously, you won't play any of the old puzzles. We didn't delete or modify the old puzzles for historical reasons (and because there's no effective way to get them to match the new spec). If someone externally links to lichess.org/training/5155 (an old puzzle), it should link to the same puzzle that it did 5 months ago. There's no contradiction.

@Clarkey , would it be sensible to pick the daily puzzles only from newer puzzles?